Associate Professor of Mission and Native American Christianity
B.A., Whitworth College; M.A., Fuller Theological Seminary; Ph.D., University of Washington; joined the UDTS faculty in 1997

Contact Info:
212 Severance | (563) 589-3648 | bslewis@dbq.edu

“A church not in mission fails to be the church. God calls and God sends the whole church into the whole world that all may know, in the words of the Psalmist, of God’s ’unfailing love’ and ’full redemption’ through Jesus Christ. To be the church is to know and respond to the call of God. To be in mission begins with knowing the heart of God, with learning to listen to the voice of God, and discerning where God is at work in the world. God calls the church to participate in God’s mission: to work and worship with and among diverse peoples who are also called and sent by God to bring the Good News to the people of God’s heart. We must strengthen and equip pastors in their faith so that they and their congregations can together hear God’s voice, love one another, and, through the power of the Holy Spirit, take the Gospel of Jesus Christ into the world God so loves.”

A native of California and an elder in the Presbyterian Church (USA), Bonnie Sue Lewis began her career as a high school history teacher at the Inter-American School in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, in 1976. She went on to teach in California in the 1980s and in Washington during the 1990s. A scholar of Native American Christian history, her interest and involvement in the American Indian community began with her doctoral research on Native American pastors of the Presbyterian Church.  Dr. Lewis is author of Creating Christian Indians: Native Clergy in the Presbyterian Church, co-editor of Mission in a Global Context, a collection of autobiographical sketches by Presbyterian professors of mission.  She is actively involved in the Presbyterian Church at the local and national levels, and a frequent speaker in the church and the academy on God’s call to mission.